Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts

by Lucy Dillon

  So that’s George the vet, she thought. At least he’s got a sense of humour.

  George looked like a country vet too, in a checked shirt rolled up at the sleeves, battered red cords, and muddy boots. He clutched his mug of tea with a large, chapped hand, not bothering with the handle. His hair was thick and blond, and, going by the casual confidence in his blue eyes and the way he was helping himself to a double slice of fruit cake, he seemed very much at home.

  ‘Ah, Megan, you’re back, love!’ said the older man – Ted, was it? ‘We’ve parked Mickey and Minnie in the kennels and we’re fine to take out another two, if you’d like?’

  ‘How about Bertie?’ suggested George, and Rachel caught the shudder that went over the two elderly faces. Then he spotted her standing behind Megan, and his face changed, out of the relaxed bonhomie and into a more professional alertness.

  Rachel thought she preferred the first, before he’d seen her looking; George’s face was rugged, rather than handsome, and the red skin around his nose suggested he’d spent a lot of time outside in the cold air recently. But when he’d been gently teasing the old lady, the twinkle in his eyes made him look younger, and cheekier; as soon as he’d spotted her at the door, he’d seemed more like a senior vet, about her own age, she guessed, maybe a little older. A practice owner, not an employee.

  ‘Hi, guys!’ carolled Megan. ‘This is Rachel Fielding, Dot’s niece. She’s the new owner of the house, the kennels, the rescue, everything!’

  ‘Hello,’ said Rachel, raising an awkward hand.

  ‘Ted Shackley. And my wife, Freda. Our condolences, love,’ said Ted. He rose to his feet and shook her hand, clasping it for a second in his. As he spoke, the creases around his forehead deepened. ‘Not a happy occasion, this.’

  ‘No,’ echoed his wife. ‘She was one in a million, was Dot.’

  ‘One in a million,’ sighed Ted.

  ‘George Fenwick.’ The vet pushed himself off the sink and switched his mug to the other hand, but didn’t put it down. He was a good bit taller than Rachel, which was unusual enough for her to notice; she was nearly five foot ten, and hadn’t worn heels since Before Oliver. He extended a hand, and she saw flecks of gold hair along his arm, disappearing into the checked shirt.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. His hand felt big and rough against her own smooth skin. Country hands against her SPF-protected city ones. ‘Thanks for helping Megan keep this place ticking over since Dot’s . . . for the last few weeks.’

  ‘A pleasure. Dot was a client and a good friend.’ George looked at her, his head on one side, scrutinising her. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he said. ‘You’re not really an animal person.’

  ‘Mr Fenwick!’ exclaimed Freda, in a scandalised manner. ‘How rude!’

  ‘Well, a fancy black skirt in a kennel?’ he said. His shrewd eyes didn’t leave hers, and Rachel thought they weren’t quite joking. ‘I’m no fashion expert, but I’d advise you not to go anywhere near the runs until Megan’s finished feeding time. You’ll walk in with a smart black suit and leave with grey flannels.’

  ‘I didn’t dress for feeding dogs,’ said Rachel. She couldn’t be bothered with men who thought borderline rudeness constituted repartee. ‘I dressed for meeting a solicitor.’

  ‘Of course you did,’ said Freda, soothingly. ‘I’m sure you’ll find something suitable of Dot’s to pop on. And if you need any help, just ask.’ She squeezed Rachel’s hand. ‘I’m here most days, helping out with the poor little souls. It’s our way of remembering Pippin. Pippin was one of Dot’s rescues, wasn’t he, Ted? He was an angel sent to us from a higher place.’

  ‘He was a Yorkshire terrier sent here from a puppy farm in Wales,’ George corrected her. ‘The failed stud dog in a harem of over-bred bitches, if I recall.’

  Freda ignored him. ‘George is an excellent veterinarian, but he’s a way to go before he has his father’s basketside manner,’ she went on. ‘Don’t you listen to him, Rachel. I can see you are a dog person. Look how Gem’s taken to you.’

  Rachel looked down and realised that the collie had settled at her feet, his long nose resting on his paws. White hairs were drifting up her legs, settling on her dry-clean-only skirt. ‘Oh. But I’m not, though. I’ve never had a dog. I travel a lot for work, and I don’t have the time . . .’

  I don’t want to be tied down. I don’t want to be stuck. That’s the great thing about me and Oliver, no ties, no boring commitment.

  Was the great thing, she reminded herself.

  ‘Gem doesn’t do that to everyone,’ said Freda, as if she hadn’t heard. ‘He must know. They know, don’t they? Pippin always could tell when it was going to rain. He’d pop his little head under the cushion and hide. He was a highly intelligent dog. Guided, we thought, didn’t we, Ted?’

  ‘We did.’

  ‘Pippin did the National Lottery,’ said George, catching Rachel’s eye. ‘Freda and Ted have Pippin to thank for their conservatory. He had his own sofa in there, didn’t he? For watching the tennis.’

  ‘Don’t remind me,’ said Freda, dabbing her nose. ‘It’s so empty without him.’

  Ted reached for another slice of cake.

  ‘I know you’re not exactly dressed for it, but shall I show you round the kennels?’ asked Megan. ‘Then you can settle in a bit? Or whatever you want to do.’

  Rachel felt bad for being so disorganised. They expected her to have plans. She looked as if she should have plans, coming here as the executor in charge of parcelling up Dot’s life, dressed as if she was off to a power breakfast. But she had no plans at all. Her brain was so addled with shock and money worries and the things she should have said if she hadn’t been so stunned, she wasn’t even sure she could cope with a trip to the supermarket for food right now.

  ‘Megan, just tell the dogs not to shed for ten minutes,’ said George, with a fake bossy tone. ‘And take an air freshener with you – these country smells can be a shock to sophisticated metropolitan types.’

  Rachel was about to ask Megan for a cup of tea first, but she swung round at his words. There was a sardonic half-smile playing on the corner of George’s wide mouth and, without warning, she felt riled, the first non-Oliver-related emotion she’d had since she walked out.

  ‘You can always put scented candles in there,’ he added, seeing her irritation. ‘And have it feng shuied?’

  That smug bastard’s laughing at me, thought Rachel. He thinks I’m some London princess who’s not fit to set foot in Dot’s precious kennels. Just because I don’t have some hairy animal in tow, he thinks he can take the piss. Well, he can’t.

  She put her laptop bag down by the table and pushed back the sleeves of her long cashmere cardigan.

  ‘Working in London you get used to some unpleasant smells,’ she said. ‘Let’s go, shall we, Megan?’

  Megan looked between Rachel and George, her eyebrows raised a fraction, and then she put down the cup of tea Freda had poured and showed Rachel out of the kitchen to the dogs’ domain.

  The kennels were joined onto the back of the house by a covered passageway neatly tiled with black and white squares, and the walls decorated with happy photos of old dogs being united with their brand-new owners.

  Long windows looked out onto the apple orchard, and the modest hills beyond that, and Rachel dimly remembered the will saying something about fourteen acres of land behind the house as they walked down the short corridor. There was certainly plenty of space for the dogs to run around in the wild gardens.

  Megan pushed open the heavy fire doors to the kennels, and now Rachel really could smell dogs – a biscuity, oily smell of coats and hair, with a tangy top note of meat and bleach. It was strange, but not unpleasant. Over that, she felt as if she could actually sense the anxiety of the dogs’ bodies, the tension and pent-up energy and confusion in the air.

  Inside, everything was steel and concrete and glass, all spotlessly clean. As Rachel looked further in, she made out two rows of cage-fronted pens running either side o
f a stone-flagged corridor, with a little office to one side and a kitchen opposite. At the far end was a big old stable door; it let in sunlight and sharp fresh air when the top half was opened for ventilation, as it was now. Incongruously, the dogs seemed to be grumbling along to a panel discussion on the radio.

  ‘So, here we are!’ said Megan, cheerily. She threw her hands wide. ‘Home sweet home for our waifs and strays!’

  At the sound of her voice, the ragged chorus of yaps turned into a wall of barking – deep, booming baying with tiny yips cutting across the bass notes. It clanged on Rachel’s unaccustomed ears.

  ‘Shush!’ yelled Megan ineffectively.

  ‘How many are there?’ Rachel asked, raising her voice to be heard over the cacophony.

  ‘Fifteen, unless we’ve had any hand-ins while I’ve been out?’ Megan was checking a book on the office table, and pressing buttons on the answering machine at the same time. ‘Sorry, we often get phone calls from people at their wit’s end with badly behaved dogs – wanting to dump them on us. I try to talk them round, rather than let them . . . Oh, not again. Sorry, Rachel, this nutcase in Madden’s trying to palm off a couple of Scotties for, like, the tenth time this year. If she could get her arse to training classes it would save us all a load of . . .’

  She grabbed a pencil and gestured towards the dog runs. ‘Do you want to have a look at the guys? Put those wellies on, if you want. Walk very slowly, and don’t put your fingers inside.’

  Rachel realised she must have looked horrified, because Megan added quickly, ‘They won’t bite, but some of them are a bit peckish this time of day.’ She chucked a bag of treats off the desk, and Rachel caught it. ‘Give them one or two, but no more – it’ll be their dinner at six.’

  Rachel slipped her feet into the spare wellies parked by the door, and cautiously approached the first pen, not wanting to set off more barking. The smell of fur and dog breath intensified. As George had predicted, her skirt and opaque-clad legs were already turning grey with stray hairs.

  I should have brought some jeans, she thought. In her rush to leave the flat she’d thrown the contents of her last dry-cleaning run into her bags, dumping the rest of her wardrobe in storage. Thinking about it, she wasn’t sure what bits of her fashionable working wardrobe really lent themselves to kennel work. Most of it was dry-clean only.

  Without warning a wet nose shoved itself up to the wire and she jumped as the front of the run shook with the impact of a big dog thrusting its paws up towards her.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ she gasped, grabbing her throat. ‘Don’t!’

  But she couldn’t help her heart melting at what she saw: a handsome red-and-white Basset hound with a softly wrinkled face, snuffling at her eagerly, one massive paw pressing up against the bars with a pleading gesture, so the solid pads pushed through the bars of the wire, revealing delicate tufts of hair between. Rachel had no idea how old the dog was, but it still looked to be growing into the huge knuckly paws and flopping ears, like a child wearing a set of clothes a year too big.

  There was a tag attached to the top of the cage and she read it while the dog carried on sniffing out her interesting new scent. The note was in Dot’s upright cursive handwriting, but the voice in the written words was clearly the dog in front of her.

  ‘My name’s Bertie, and I’m about twelve months old. My people took me for a walk in the park but then drove away. Though I tried to run after them, I couldn’t run fast enough because as you can see, my legs are very short. I wish someone would come back for me, because it’s rubbish being on my own. What I’m really looking for is a patient couple with a sense of humour who want a dog who’s as funny as they are. PS When I’m big, I will like walks, even though I look like I prefer lying around by your fireside.’

  Rachel’s stomach tightened in a knot as the dog tried to lick her hand, eager for affection. How could anyone just abandon a puppy like this? How could you push a trusting dog away, stopping it following you home? She bit her lip as she fondled the dog’s soft ear and tried not to think too hard about his sad story.

  There were tags on each of the pens, she could see: Rachel wasn’t sure she wanted to read them, but some awful curiosity compelled her.

  She turned to the pen opposite the Basset hound’s, where a little black poodle lay sadly in a basket at the far end of the concrete run, not even bothering to investigate the visitor. The cheery note was much brighter than the disconsolate ball of fur in front of her.

  ‘Hello, darlings! I’m Lulu! Please ignore my bad hair day – underneath these knots I’m a beautiful show girl. My last owner didn’t bother to brush me, or look after me properly, or even feed me every day. Luckily, now I’m here, Megan is going to give me a makeover, and soon you’ll see just how gorgeous I am. I’m looking for someone clever enough to see that just because I’m cute doesn’t mean I’m dumb – I’m probably the smartest dog in here (apart from Gem) and I want to use this brain of mine! Believe me, old dogs can learn new tricks.’

  Were poodles smart? Rachel had no idea. The only poodles she’d seen were the silly shaved pets, prancing around show rings. But they had some spark, unlike this poor creature.

  ‘Hello, Lulu!’ she called through the bars, waving a biscuit, but the dog didn’t even lift her long nose from the edge of her basket. Instead she cowered away from the voice, as if she was afraid of what Rachel might do to her. She had a shaved patch on her side, and the pale blue-grey suede of her skin seemed vulnerable around the pinched stitches holding a recent incision together.

  Rachel turned away from the poodle, unable to bear it. This was just too sad. Where were the normal dogs? The ones Dot was boarding for people who actually loved their pets?

  She leaned back against the wall opposite Lulu and closed her eyes, feeling weariness and sympathy swamp her whole body.

  If anyone knew what it felt like to be shoved out of a life you knew by someone you loved, she did. How much she wanted a second chance. Dot couldn’t possibly have known how ironic her will was. Or maybe she did. Maybe she’d remembered that strange non-conversation they’d had and decided Rachel needed not just one dog’s worth of affection but fifteen . . .

  ‘Watch out! Oi! No!’

  Rachel jumped backwards as Megan came sprinting down the corridor, wagging her finger in the direction of the pen next to her. When she looked down she realised why: the Basset hound had stuck its nose through a gap in the wire and was half-licking, half-chewing one of the round horn buttons off her long cardigan.

  ‘It’s not a sweetie! Honestly, Bertie!’ Megan directed a gentle swipe in the dog’s direction and he dropped down, back onto his four enormous paws. ‘Sometimes I wonder if there’s a pig inside that Basset hound costume of yours!’

  Bertie directed a plaintive, starving look at both of them, so that Rachel reached for the treats that she’d stuffed in her pocket.

  ‘And don’t give her that sad-eyed, no one feeds me look,’ Megan went on. ‘Sorry,’ she said, turning back to Rachel. ‘He’s a naughty one, Bertie, but we love him.’

  ‘But why’s he still here?’ said Rachel, shaking a treat out of the packet and offering it to him through the wire. ‘He’s beautiful!’

  ‘Oh, Bassets,’ sighed Megan. ‘They eat, they sleep, they won’t listen to you . . . Adorable puppies grow up into this huge dog. Bertie steals food, wasn’t house-trained, cries when he’s left alone, he chews.’ She made a stern face that wasn’t completely convincing, thanks to the soft way she bent down to tickle Bertie’s draped ears. ‘You’re someone’s project dog, aren’t you, Bertram? You need someone who likes a challenge.’

  ‘I saw his note,’ said Rachel, nodding towards the tag on the door. ‘I thought Dot didn’t like dogs talking?’

  ‘Well, she didn’t. But she reckoned it was the best way of making people understand that they weren’t toys to be picked up, or abandoned, that the dogs had feelings too, you know?’ Megan’s face darkened with protectiveness, and she chewed a hangnail. �
�OK, so they don’t do guilt or spite or emotional blackmail, but they get lonely. We wanted new owners to think really hard about what they were taking home – a life that depended on them.’

  ‘Like a child,’ said Rachel, with a pang. That was another ghostly thought, looming over her since her break-up with Oliver. Children. The children she’d never have now, even if she’d never wanted them before.

  ‘Harder than a child,’ said a new voice, and they both turned to the door, where George was standing, his arms crossed over his chest. ‘A child can tell you what’s wrong, whereas with dogs you’ve got to learn each other’s language. Some people don’t have the patience, but that’s not the dog’s fault. How’s your designer outfit getting on? I see you’ve abandoned the Jimmy Choos.’

  ‘I’m not afraid of a few hairs.’ Rachel gave her skirt a cursory brush. She wasn’t going to tell George that this’d be straight into the dry cleaners in the morning. ‘I didn’t realise there were so many rescue dogs here. The solicitor said Dot’s business was mainly boarding kennels?’

  ‘That’s what they were supposed to be,’ said George. ‘But Dot had her own private mission going on, to rehome every lost soul in the area. If you ask me, you’ve got the potential to make a decent living here, if those kennels weren’t full of rescue dogs. It’s the only one in the area, there’s room for a grooming parlour, plenty of space to expand – I know Dot had some offers to buy it off her over the years. I could probably put you in touch with the right estate agents.’

  ‘That would be . . .’ Rachel began, but Megan shot her a defensive glance that made her stop.

  ‘Yes, but they wouldn’t guarantee to continue the rescue, and that was Dot’s life.’ Megan turned back to the office, looking for paperwork to show her. ‘We have to keep the boarders and the rescue dogs very separate – we had five boarders in, just before she died. Only I thought it was better to wind that down for a while, till we knew what was happening.’ She paused. ‘I mean, are you . . .?’